What Is Ownerly? Should You Use its Home Value Estimator?
Thinking about selling or remodeling? You’re probably curious about your home’s current market value. Most sellers want to get top dollar for their home, and people choosing to remodel don’t want to put money into their homes they won’t recoup when they sell. Enter Ownerly.com, the home value and data website.
When you search online for your home’s value, Ownerly might pop up in the results. Its tagline — “Home Value, See What Your Home is REALLY Worth” — targets homeowners who want a current market estimate of their home’s value.
Here’s what you need to know about Ownerly before signing up for their (paid) service.
Editor’s note: Processes, rates, and services from real estate companies can change based on market conditions, housing trends, changes in technology, and customer needs.
What is Ownerly?
Ownerly is a website designed to help homeowners determine their home’s value and view other real estate data. Their focus is on the investment aspect of homeownership, and they tout that their service will unlock professional-grade real estate data.
While home valuation is their core business, they also provide information on mortgage and refinancing rates, estimated home improvement costs, and local sales data. You can see what your neighbor sold their home for or if they have any liens against their property. Their tagline under their logo on their website says, “Ownerly.com helps you search homes and learn more about them.”
The website features a blog with a content library that covers buying and selling a home, home improvements, mortgage and loans, and real estate basics. Their name indicates the brand’s focus on homeowners.
How does Ownerly work for home sellers?
If you’re a home seller, Ownerly could be useful as a data point.
If you have doubts about the price range an agent selected after preparing a comparative market analysis (CMA), Ownerly can possibly provide some confirmation.
Home sellers considering selling “for sale by owner” (FSBO) might find Ownerly helpful when setting a list price, although industry experts warn against relying too heavily on automated valuation models (AVM) to set your own price. It can also save FSBO sellers time researching recent comparable sales in their neighborhood.
It’s important to note that AVMs like Ownerly’s typically only provide a ballpark home value estimate and are not as reliable or accurate as a CMA or an appraisal.
On Ownerly’s site homepage, you’ll find a tool called “Browse Properties by State” that drills down on a street. You can see the average lot size, property taxes, and the age of homes where you live, as well as recent sales data. These informational listings are useful if you’re initially pricing your home or trying to see how much you might get for selling.
What if you’re a homeowner a few years out from selling? Ownerly’s data could help you weigh the value of home improvements. The typical renovations on homes in your area, plus cost data and home values, could help you estimate the potential cost of a remodel and if you’d recoup that cost when selling.
